Wednesday, March 17, 2010

With my freeze ray gun...

So, I know I'm about 2 years late on this...which in the online world is centuries ago.  But who cares?


Once upon a time in a land known as 2008, there was a web series phenomenon by Joss Whedon (and team) known as "Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog".  I remember seeing poster images of it at random places, but didn't know what it was and didn't know I should watch it.  One of my friends showed me the first act of it late last summer, and I loved it, but never got around to seeing the rest.  Netflix changed that!

Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) who's crush on a neighborhood girl (Felicia Day) forces him to balance trying to get the girl and fulfilling his career dreams of villainy.  Oh, and in song!  Look I know there are a lot of people who hate anything called a musical, but I think they've probably only seen bad ones.  :P  These songs are varied, and the lyrics are used to tell the story, not to repeat a refrain over and over because "we need a song here".  The web series got a lot of buzz in the press, won an Emmy, and apparently placed 4th for the top 10 TV Series of 2008 in Time Magazine.  It also got me to post about it even though it's two years old!  There must be other people who haven't seen it, so my advice is to change that.  If you have seen it, get someone else to see it who hasn't!  Netflix instant streaming win! 

I find this production to be inspirational in so many ways!  First off, the obvious--it's really good!  Fantastic story, acting, and music.  Second, it's independent without being "indie".  This was just a bunch of people getting together, wanting to make something good on their own terms, while trying to show that anyone can create and distribute their own content on the web these days.  I mean really, is there no better time to be an artist if you want to try to get your personal work seen in public?  I enjoyed it so much and wanted to support this type of independent work that I immediately bought the DVD on Amazon.  It makes me want to create something of my own and get it out there!  Or draw more of my comic ;)  I have ideas, for the first time I actually have ideas--gotta do it!

So yeah, if you haven't seen it, watch it.  If you have, keep telling people about it!